In a recent interview with HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise), Facebook Director of Analytics Ken Rudin describes how the foremost social media company uses analytics to improve its business processes.

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Business analytics is not just for engineers and IT staff anymore.

Business News

The training of skilled data professionals is never more critical than right now, say the authors of a Fortune magazine article that says companies are seeking nearly 200,000 data professionals in the next few years.

But it's not just IT staff that companies need, says Dr. Betsy Page Sigman, a professor at Georgetown University and an expert on technology and information systems. "The more important thing for companies will be to have a lot of people that understand not just how to produce statistics and analytics, but understand how to make better decisions because they have this information."

That principle—to combine business acumen with sound skills in data analysis—was the impetus to create the MS in Business Analytics, says Santa Clara University Professor Xiaojing Dong, faculty director of the new MS program.